A Sentinel Unliving and Undying
by horacethepig
Summary: Nobody can better guide you through a year in the life of the Tower of London than its ghosts. Anne Boleyn has invited a team from The Quibbler to party like it's 1534...
1. Chapter 1: All Hallow's Eve

The rights to Rex Milligan belong to the late Anthony Buckeridge. Those to Harry Potter belong to J.K. Rowling. Those to the Dana girls, Linda Craig and others to the Stratemeyer Syndicate. Those to The Tudors belong to Showtime Entertainment, although clearly most of them were genuine historical people. Those to Once Upon a Time are held by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz. Other rights belong to Marvel Comics, DC Comics/Warner Brothers/Hanna-Barbera, the BBC, the estates of the late Enid Blyton, the late Charles Addams, the late Malcolm Saville, the late Ian Fleming, the late Terrance Dicks and more. I own nothing and make claim to the same nothing.

The Tower of London, Halloween 2019

The Tower of London has been used as a palace, a garrison, a prison, a menagerie and much more over its 950 or so years of existence. It houses the Crown Jewels, the Yeoman Warders, the British Headquarters of UNIT and several ghosts.

Three Queens were beheaded here. All three still – _reside_ here. I should know. Anne Boleyn is peering over my shoulder as I write. Don't worry. She's sweet once you get to know her, as well as one of the few ladies capable of rivalling my wife in beauty. Henry VIII was an addle-pated clodpoll, quite frankly.

Anne and her fellow victims have agreed to introduce us to the major festivals of the year at the Tower. It made sense to start tonight on the Eve of All Saints Day, or Samhain to any British Pagans amongst you.

So, dear _Quibbler_ readers, join me, your Muggle Correspondent Rex Milligan, at a roaring bonfire on Tower Green. By the way, Anne reminds me to tell you that she was executed on the parade ground some distance away and nowhere near the currently marked scaffold site on the Green, despite what it says on the notice. She should know…

The great and the good (and not so good) of the centuries are here. Three queens, three dukes, several earls and assorted other peers of the realm are gathered around the fire alongside various of my fellow guests. Luna is having a whale of a time dancing with Katherine Howard, who just loves to party like it's 1540. Mark Smeaton is serenading my wife and sisters-in-law with his lute. My adopted daughter Harriet and the Scamander twins are playing with the Princes in the Tower. Shouldn't it be the King and the Prince in the Tower? King Edward V may have never been Crowned, but he is described as such in the Order of Succession.

Anne rises to her feet. The ceremony is about to begin!

"My friends, many of us suffered in this doleful place. Those tortures, torments and bloody deaths are all now in the past. Now we are all one in such pursuits as are open to us

"It is some time since we last had a great revel. Our friends from UNIT have provided us with a bonfire to dance around."

"Your Majesty," Lorcan asked politely, "when do we get to hear some scary stories?"

"Yes, your Majesty," Lysander chorused, "we are around a bonfire on Halloween. Ghost stories are a must!"

"_Oh please, Auntie Anne!_" Harriet chimed in, her eyes sparkling.

"Boys, please follow Harriet's example and call me Auntie Anne. I'm a decapitated traitress, _allegedly,_ and not a reigning monarch or their consort. I _was_ beheaded, but I am no more a traitor than that…" As usual, I shall spare you her considered opinion on that _odious oik _that she had the great misfortune to have married.

"If you want grisly stories, you have come to the right place. James, would you come here please? Thank you." The ghost of a tall man with long dark hair came forward. He was dressed in the clothes of the 1680's rather than the 1530's that Anne was wearing.

"Children, this is James, Duke of Monmouth. Can you tell them of your sad fate?"

"Of course. I was born to Charles II in exile, a few months after my grandfather's execution during the Civil War. My mother, Lucy Walter, had died before the Restoration of the Monarchy and my father's childless marriage to Catherine of Braganza, his Queen Consort. He made me the Duke of Monmouth in 1663. I quickly obtained a reputation as a fine soldier.

"With all his offspring, male or female, of doubtful legitimacy, his Catholic brother James, Duke of York was heir to the throne. This was unpopular with many of my fellow Protestants, who began a rumour that my parents were wed prior to my birth and that I was thus the rightful heir to the Throne. I lost favour and fled abroad to the Netherlands, with a supposed plot to murder my father and uncle four years later making my choice of exile seem prudent.

"When my father died in 1685, my uncle was crowned King James II of England, Wales and Ireland and King James VII of Scotland. I, believing in my legitimacy and my claim to the Throne, landed in Lyme Regis and launched a rebellion. My troops were a ragtag and bobtail of West Country farmers armed with scythes and pitchforks. We were soundly trounced, and I was captured a few weeks later and taken here for my execution.

"Jack Ketch was the chief executioner back then. No more incompetent cur had ever wielded an axe! He took at least five strokes to kill me and _still_ had to use a butcher's knife to fully separate my head from my body."

"My headsman was worse," a tall female ghost said, wearing the clothes of Anne's time. "With the execution arranged at very short notice, I got a callow youth who had probably never chopped more than wood before. He just hacked at my neck until my head was finally severed."

"That is true, Margaret," Anne nodded. "Everyone, this is Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, another of my _beloved husband's _unfortunate victims."

"The Blessed Margaret Pole is a martyr of the Roman Catholic Church," I added. "One of her sons, Cardinal Reginal Pole, wrote some papers condemning Henry VIII during the English Reformation. As he was in exile abroad, the king reacted with typical charity and restraint by having most of his family imprisoned and later executed on the Cardinal's behalf.

"The Countess of Salisbury was imprisoned in the Tower for two-and-a-half years. Her execution was a last-minute affair, scheduled as the King and Queen went on a Royal Progress of the North. Since the Progress was partly to punish traitors, he took the best executioners with him. Hence, the Tower authorities merely placed a block directly on Tower Green, rather than bothering to erect a scaffold, and used the Tudor England equivalent of a fifteen-year-old schoolboy on a couple of weeks' work experience to behead the formidable 67-year-old niece of a previous king. By all accounts, he panicked and merely swung wildly and hoped for the best. Hopefully, he decided on a different choice of future career.

"Jack Ketch by all accounts was a decent hangman but was rarely called upon to act as a headsman, which was a means of, err, _dispatch_ usually reserved for nobles. On both the execution of the Duke and that of William Russell, Lord Russell, two years before, he badly botched both decapitations.

"My sympathies to both of you on your sadly bungled deaths."

"I was beheaded by a sword wielded by a wonderful executioner from Calais," Anne admitted. "It was over in a trice."

"This is certainly gory," Lysander noted, "but not exactly ghost stories."

"They are stories told by ghosts," Louise pointed out, those beautiful soft brown eyes sparkling. My wife is a stunningly beautiful woman with her tall and slender figure and brunette hair, but to me her eyes will always be her best feature. How did it take me over fifty years to realise that I was in love with the elder Dana sister?! Well, that story has already been published in _The Quibbler!_

"Countess, my sister, sister-in-law and I are Catholics. It is a great honour to meet you. I can't believe that I am talking to a beatified martyr of our Faith."

"_You should address her as Lady Salisbury, darling, not Countess!_ Only a Duchess or Princess should be addressed by her rank and not as Lady Whatever or Wherever."

"Quite right," Lady Salisbury approved. "The Countess is correct in the third person, but not in the second.

"Call me Margaret anyway. Anne here is right. Whatever titles we may have held in life, they are at best courtesies in death.

"What about the mysterious tube or the young soldier who died of fright after claiming to see the ghost of a bear? Those are stories worth the telling."

"A number of hardened soldiers have fainted after seeing me," Anne admitted cheerfully. "There is nothing like a good haunting!" Anne Boleyn would be a natural for _Rentaghost…_

"In any event, let the revelries commence!" With those words, Anne grabbed the nearest male ghost and began a stately pavane.

"This looks like fun, _mi amada esposa_," Linda grinned, those dark Hispanic eyes flashing with passion. If anyone can rival my honorary younger sister Luna Scamander in constant cheeriness no matter what the circumstances, it is Linda Dana-Craig! Our fun feisty _senorita of the saddle_ is an essential part of our family unit. She and the irrepressible Jean Dana-Craig are a joyous match. I couldn't be happier to call them my sisters-in-law.

"A dance of Italian origins popular in Spain," I mused, "so no wonder our Linda's enjoying herself. A few Jacobite Scottish and North East English peers were beheaded here following the 1715 and 1745 risings. Perhaps there might be jigs and reels for the Scottish side of Linda's heritage? For that matter, since Dana and Milligan are both Irish surnames, we must have some Celtic blood too.

"In any event, darling, shall we follow Jean and Linda's example and join yon swirling throng of spectral dancers?"

"Of course, my love." With that, Louise took my hand and we joined the dance. Harriet, Lorcan and Lysander merely shrugged and returned to playing with King Edward and Prince Richard. Formal balls are not their scene!

After a couple of hours of dancing, we were once more gathered around the bonfire. "What happens now?" Luna asked. "Do we sweep the ground with besom brooms, bury apples or place a cauldron on a Samhain altar with apples, nuts, berries and black candles. Alternatively, we could dance wildly round the bonfire in the nude. That would be…"

"Jolly chilly in October!" I fired back. "_Crystallised Cheesecakes!_ Don't be an addle-pated clodpoll, Sis! I've heard some beetle-brained ideas in my time, but that might take the biscuit.

"That said, somebody suggested ghost stories earlier. Anne, could you remind us of the first of those two stories that you mentioned earlier please? Thank you."

"Certainly, Rex. Gather round me and I'll tell you a tale of London's Tower.

"In the 1800's, a man named Edmund Swifte was Keeper of the Crown Jewels. He and his wife dwelt in the Martin Tower. One day, in the Year of our Lord 1817, they supped in their lodgings when they beheld a sight unearthly. Before their very eyes appeared a cylinder full of some sort of blue liquid. When his wife shouted that _something _had grabbed her, Swifte hurled a chair at the dread apparition. The chair passed straight through it and presently thereafter it vanished from sight. So far as we know, whatever it was has never been seen since.

"The previous year, a sentry on guard outside the Jewel House of the time was found quaking with terror. He claimed to have seen a spectral bear lumbering towards him. Within a few days, he had expired, 'tis said from sheer terror.

"The Tower of London was used as a Royal Menagerie until as late as 1835. Several bears were kept here over the centuries, including a polar bear centuries before even my earthly lifetime that was said to catch its own fish swimming in the Thames, attached to the shore with a long chain. Had that poor man seen the ghost of one of them? Well, if you want an answer…" Anne pointed to the courtyard, where a phantom bear was indeed shuffling about. "Max was an old pet of that damnable cur that I was married to. He has been known to dance to Mark's lute when in a good mood." Mark Smeaton, our lutenist, was beheaded on Tower Hill as one of Anne Boleyn's "lovers," which was a list comprising entirely of Henry VIII in reality.

"I assume you mean Max dances, and not Henry VIII," Jean interrupted.

"_That damnable wretch_ is not welcome here!" Anne spat, her dark eyes flashing. "I _did_ mean Max, who is much lighter on his feet than Henry was in his later years." She doesn't like her ex much. Can you blame her?!

"The man does seem to have suffered considerably from the Wrackspurts," Luna commented.

"I rather think it was gout and a gangrenous ulcer of the leg, Luna. Still, I can't say that I am sorry for the man, after what he had done to me.

"Well, the hour is late. I believe that the children have school tomorrow. Shall we meet again, at Yule if not before?"

"Of course," Luna agreed. "How do ghosts celebrate Christmas?"

"With much merrymaking, Luna my dear. Come along this year and see for yourself. Ye are all always welcome in the Tower of London."


	2. Chapter 2: Comfort and Joy

Christmas Eve 2019

There are some people who love Christmas and others who loathe it. Certain permanently disgusted characters, one of whom happens to reside in Gotham City, are of the "_Bah, Humbug!_" school. Jason Blood often grumbles that Etrigan is more likely to wish you a Merry Christmas than Batman is! I do like our chiropteran friend, but _honestly…!_

Anyway, the Chief Grouch is in Gotham and not the Tower of London this Christmas Night. The rest of the Paranormal Investigations Bureau and their spouses are here. With Velma and Jupiter coming complete with the rest of Mystery Inc and the Three Investigators respectively, this is quite the party. Luna has brought not only Rolf and the twins, but also her father and the Potters, Longbottoms and Weasleys. Since the Doctor is visiting Kate Stewart at UNIT Headquarters and Zelena and Robyn Mills are spending Christmas with Louise, Harriet and me, this should be a Christmas Night to remember.

"How is Gryffindor doing in the House Cup?" Anne Boleyn asked. It may be five centuries since she finished Hogwarts (Gryffindor 1512-1519), but she is still a Lioness at heart.

"Second to Slytherin," Rose replied, "with Hufflepuff only slightly behind in third. Given that less than forty points separate Slytherin and fourth-placed Ravenclaw, this could be the closest contest in years.

"We are ahead in the Quidditch Cup though, with yours truly leading our exciting trio of Chasers."

"That's great! I was a Chaser too during my halcyon time at Hogwarts."

I had been back at the Tower since. On Bonfire Night, I got to hear the screams of Guy Fawkes from his torture on the rack after the Gunpowder Plot had failed. If I was racked as badly as he was said to have been, you would still hear _my _screams 414 years later too!

On Remembrance Sunday, Anne introduced me to the ghost of Carl Hans Lody, a German spy who on 6 November 1914 obtained the dubious distinction of becoming the first person executed in the Tower of London or on Tower Hill since 1747. No victim of axe or sword, he was dispatched by firing squad on the rifle range between the Martin and Constable Towers. Another ten spies from the First World War and one more from the Second became the last names in that dread roll call of those who were put to death in this doleful place. A brave patriot for his country, Carl is hugely popular with his fellow ghosts here. He is here tonight by the way to join the spectral wassailers in making merry. Catholic and Protestant alike shall unite in joyful songs sacred and secular.

We are walking into the Chapel of Saint Peter Ad Vincula (Saint Peter in Chains, which is a reference to Chapter 12 of the Acts of the Apostles, for those of you slept through whatever Religious Instruction is called these days), the larger of the two Chapels Royal in the Tower. Despite the name, the building is a full-scale church, sited within the Inner Ward. Strictly speaking, the Chapel Royal is not a building, but a part of the Royal Household, with priests and choristers, both men and boys. A few past and present royal palaces have Chapels Royal to host the Chapel Royal, although it has been many a decade since a monarch has lived or worshipped in the Tower of London. A church has stood on the site since before the original White Tower was built by William the Conqueror, with the original Anglo-Saxon church incorporated into the new Norman Castle complex. This was replaced by a new church on the same site in Edward I's time and, after that was badly damaged by fire in 1512, Henry VIII had the current building erected a few years later. It gave him the perfect place to bury the bodies, _literally!_

One of the saddest spots in the Tower is the Victorian pavement on which the communion table rests. The floor in the area was in a deplorable condition at the time and was replaced. During the dig, they found the remains of some Tower Dignitaries and some of those who had been beheaded by axe or sword for crimes real or imagined. Anne Boleyn's remains were amongst those unearthed and then reinterred under marble slabs with their titles and coats of arms emblazoned upon them. The Duke of Monmouth and the Countess of Salisbury were also amongst them, the Duke under the table itself.

"This place must bring up some bad memories," Louise says to Anne sympathetically. "You are buried here…"

"I was thrown into an empty arrow chest and buried unmarked in the floor!" Anne sniffed. "They even tucked my head underneath my…" She paused, before adding "No wonder I hate that _bloody song!_

"At least those good Victorians gave me a decent burial. That only took about 340 years!" There were a few hearty cries of "Hear, hear!" at this point. Look, _nobody_ deserved that fate, particularly those like Anne who were innocent victims. Those Victorians gave them honourable and devout burials. I know that Anne, the Dukes of Somerset, Northumberland and Monmouth, the Countess of Salisbury and Lady Rochford are forever grateful for the belated courtesy, as are Viscount Rochford, Katherine Howard, Lady Jane Grey and others whose bodies were either not identified or had been buried where the floor did not need replacing, but were still given proper memorial stones.

"That _odious oik _Henry VIII was the living definition of the term _ozard!_" I snapped, angry at that last cruelty inflicted on his unfortunate second spouse. "If anyone was the exact opposite of _wizard _as in very good, it was that awful…

"_Fossilised Fishhooks!_ I'm sorry, Zelena. I forgot that you used to live there. _You are wizard in both senses as far as I am concerned!_ I meant no offence."

"None was taken, Rex!" Zelena laughed. "I don't like that film either. _Bloody hell! _That caricature of a witch was not remotely like me. I am _not soluble in water!_ _Did they mistake me for a pill?!_

"You are one of my dearest friends, Rex, _weird phrases and all!_" She pulled Louise and I into a tight embrace. "_My pretties!_" Zelena and I became firm friends immediately when I was part of the Great Wizard Exile (did that really start two years ago this very night?) and billeted with her in Storybrooke. As with Luna, Jean, Linda, George and Penny, I think of her as an honorary sister.

"Auntie Anne," Harriet said, holding Robyn, "whilst Mommy, Daddy and Auntie Zelena are enjoying their little cuddle, could you tell me why you asked us to come here? It obviously makes you sad…"

"I love Christmas, Harriet, and I love this chapel, which is one of my regular haunts. There is to be a service of Carols around the Crib shortly and Christmas Eve Midnight Mass starts at half-past-eleven. We like to attend, Protestant and Catholic alike. Our two saints, John Fisher and Thomas Moore, long since Passed on to Glory, but William Laud still has a presence here and should be with us tonight."

"Who was William Laud?" Lorcan asked, like Anne, correctly pronouncing the surname as "Lord". The word is an old synonym for praise, which was highly appropriate.

"That would be me," said a short ghost. He was elderly, clad in Episcopal vestments and with a long white moustache and a neatly trimmed short beard on his chin. "In life, I was Charles I's Archbishop of Canterbury, until I was convicted by a bill of attainder of treason and beheaded on Tower Hill on 10 January 1645. The king pardoned me, but that was during the Civil War and Parliament ignored him. I was 71 and not long for this world in any event."

"A _bill of attainder?!_" Jean asked. "What the heck is that?!"

"That was a legal fiction," Jon Warrender explained, polishing his spectacles before making another vain attempt to tidy his fair hair, "in which a man or woman could be found guilty of treason or felony by an Act of Parliament being passed, rather than by Trial by Jury. They were abolished in 1870, but none had been enacted since 1820. Basically, a bill stated that a person or group was found guilty of a serious crime and that they therefore were deprived of all rights, including that to a fair trial.

"In short, they were a barbaric practice that have rightfully gone the way of the dodo." Hear, Hear, Jon! Those of us in the No-Longer Young Adventurer community tend to be strong believers in Fair Play! We are Loyal and Just. Look, why should we bother looking for clues to prove that a person was a jewel thief, only for the Houses of Parliament (or equivalent body elsewhere) to decide purely on a whim that they were guilty all the time anyway?! _It is just not cricket (or similar sport elsewhere)!_

"_Jinkies!_" Velma exclaimed. "That sounds _awful! The poor man!_"

"That was an abomination against due process, that is rightfully prohibited in the Constitution of the United States of America. That said, some legislation of our own did take time to be stricken down by the Supreme Court because of it." Jupiter may be verbose, but George is very lucky to have landed her man. Velma really makes Jigger happy too. No wonder Jon and Penny, a couple since their late teens, were driven to distraction by the three of us blind idiots completely clueless to the True Loves across the Pond! Well, it all turned out alright in the end.

"Many thanks," Archbishop Laud said softly, "but I am at peace now. The High Church party of the Church of England celebrate the anniversary of my martyrdom to this day. Oliver Cromwell and his Roundheads aren't commemorated in that way.

"They accused me of spreading Roman Catholicism. I was more of an Arminian than a Calvinist in my theology and preferred rituals and ecclesiastical hierarchy to Puritan simplicity, but I was no Catholic!"

"My old friend could be rude and tactless," came a new voice, "but he was a good and holy man." We were joined by the ghost of a tall man with a stooped neck and a bent brow. He also had a moustache and beard but was clearly some twenty years the Archbishop's junior at his time of death.

"Meet Thomas, Earl of Strafford, everyone," Anne announced. "He was also Attainted by Parliament in Charles I's time, after they couldn't convict him via a trial."

"That was in 1641," Jon said, "the year before the Civil War began in England. Lord Strafford had been appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1632. There, he proved a hard but fair administrator and judge.

"In 1639, King Charles recalled Lord Strafford to London. The staunchly Presbyterian Scottish Kirk had not taken kindly to the King and Archbishop Laud trying to impose the Church of England's Book of Common Prayer upon them. Many Scots signed the National Covenant, originally in the kirkyard of Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh, pledging resistance. After the King had failed to put down the protestors in the so-called First Bishops War, the Earl was tasked with raising an English and Irish army to quell the protest. When the King recalled Parliament to raise funds, however, they arrested Lord Strafford and attempted to try him for treason for raising said army. After he was acquitted, on the reasonable defence that it could hardly be treason against the King to do what the King had requested in the first place, he was Attainted and executed anyway."

"Only after the King had dithered over signing the death warrant," Archbishop Laud noted, "since he had promised to pardon Thomas. Unfortunately, he felt that he would get his funding if he didn't. Little good it his breach of promise did him! As I commented at the time, he was _'a mild and gracious prince, that knows not how to be, or be made, great.'_"

"I merely alluded to Psalm 146 verse 3," Lord Strafford agreed. "_'Put not your trust in princes, for in them there is no salvation.' _King Charles was a good and proud man, but tended to be indecisive and arrogant, which is never a good combination."

"It ended up costing him both his crown and his head!" the Archbishop agreed. "He and I were both too proud to compromise with the Scots and the English Puritans and other Parliamentarians. In fact, if we had been less haughty, then we may have avoided our troubles in the first place. It mattered not a whit what _he_ thought of the Divine Right of Kings once the Commons had decided that they had had enough of him."

"Well, it is Christmas," Anne pointed out, "so let us talk not of Death, but of Life."

We all readily agreed. After all, the service was about to begin!

There is always something magical about a boy soprano singing the first verse of _Once in Royal David's City_ to open a carol concert. It may require the verse being sung at the tempo of a tortoise doing a funeral march, but the ethereal beauty is beyond compare. Then the choir sings the next couple of verses, before the congregation join in with the last three.

The ghosts join in heartily with the congregational singing of songs ancient to us, but often from after their lifetimes. Again, Protestant and Catholic all unite with those who ordered their executions to praise the Lord at the tops of their voices.

Once the last chorus of _Hark the Herald Angels Sing_ resounded in the Church of Saint Peter Ad Vincula and the final Blessing and Dismissal was spoken, we all decamped to Tower Green. Once again, we met around a blazing bonfire. Mark Smeaton strummed his spectral lute and the merrymaking began.

"My daughter would have got a shock if you turned up in _that face_, Doctor," Anne Boleyn noted. "Do you ever regret…?"

"Elizabeth was a great woman, and I am sure that we would have been happy together, but I live for millennia and she died at 69. That was a good age back then, of course. Eventually, I would have seen her grow old and perish whatever had happened.

"If you had your time again, would you still have married Henry VIII? Was being the mother of Good Queen Bess worth being beheaded before her third birthday?"

Anne thought for a moment. "The fool never knew that I really was a witch, for all his talk of my having bewitched him into marriage. If only my wand hadn't been in safe storage when I was arrested, then I could have faked my, George and Jane's deaths and we could have fled abroad. No good crying over spilt potions, I suppose."

"You still have a portrait at Hogwarts," James told her. "Sir Nicholas tells us that you were the perfect Gryffindor. Hot-headed, impulsive and yet undaunted by anything."

"Thank you. Now for a joyous carole…" A carole, by the way, is a French dance, often associated with Christmas merrymaking. It only became associated with songs and later hymns by association later.

"Happy Christmas!" I said to the ghosts as we left the Tower after the Midnight Communion Service had ended.

"Happy Christmas, everyone!" replied Anne Boleyn. "See you all soon, I hope. God rest ye merry, all of you."

"And you. Maybe one of these days you could follow us through the portal and spend Christmas with us?"

"I'm sure that Ned Seymour and the Lady Jane could look after the Tower's ghosts for a week or two. Maybe next year? Sir Walter always tells me how glorious the Americas are."

"You must come to Storybrooke," Zelena told her. "We have all the technologies of the New World and all the courtesies of the Old.

"As a sassy former queen, you should be perfectly at home.

"It is some hours behind us in the States, Rex. I should have plenty of time to Skype Regina and family a Merry Christmas."

"That's true. Come on, everyone. There is mulled wine and mince pies at the Dana House, one step through a portal away."

"Goodbye, Auntie Anne!" Harriet called. "Happy Christmas!"

"And to you, my dear! Rex, Louise, kiss your daughter from me please. Luna, Rolf, do the same with your sons."


	3. Chapter 3: Loves Lost and Found

St Valentine's Day 2020

Of all the dates in the calendar, the one you least associate with the Tower of London is St Valentine's Day. At most royal palaces, red could be associated with hearts and roses. That is not the case here. The extensive ghost population would scoff at anyone not associating that colour with violent death!

As a group of us gathered on a chilly Friday evening, our phantom mistress of ceremonies materialised out of the ether. "Be ye all welcome! It is always good to welcome friends to our home…"

"It is great to see you too, Auntie Anne!" Harriet exclaimed. "I love making new friends!

"Who is that crying?" The sound of piteous sobbing was indeed coming from afar. Clearly the poor person was in some distress, whoever the individual in question might be

"That is Arbella Stuart, weeping for her lost love," Anne said. "She was fourth in line to the throne in the time of King James I and VI, her first cousin. After marrying William Seymour, Lord Beauchamp, without permission, she was arrested." Anne correctly pronounced Beauchamp as Beecham.

"Following a disastrous attempt to meet up with William and escape abroad, she was imprisoned here in 1611 and starved herself to death here on the 25th of September 1615. William, whose escape was successful, never contacted her again.

"_What is it with this place and people dying of a broken heart?!_ Not only Arbella, but that _accursed jester…_" At that, poor Jack Point began to sing again the song of _The Merryman and the Maid_. "We need more Gryffindors! Oh, and Master Point, if I hear one more _'Heighdy! Heighdy!'_ I shall throw you into the _bloody Thames!_

"William was the sixth in line to the throne, through his descent from my accursed husband's younger sister Mary. Edward, William was your descendant…"

Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset and once the Lord Protector of England on behalf of his nephew Edward VI (the son of Henry VIII and younger half-brother of Mary I and Elizabeth I), is a tall bearded ghost in his early 50's. An elder brother of Jane Seymour (the woman Henry VIII proposed to the day after Anne Boleyn's execution, the _odious oik_ that he was), he was beheaded on ludicrous charges following a palace coup. His dear nephew recorded the execution of his uncle in his diary in much the same manner as he would note that it had rained slightly more heavily than usual. Ironically, Edward and Anne are firm friends these days. They bonded over mutual grumbling about how Tudor kings treated their nearest and dearest!

"Yes, Anne. My titles were forfeit on my execution, but my subsidiary titles of Earl of Hertford and Viscount Beauchamp of Hatch were later recreated for my son Edward. He secretly married Lady Katherine Grey, the granddaughter of Henry VIII's sister Mary. With Queen Elizabeth I unmarried and childless, Lady Katherine was a potential claimant to the throne. They were both imprisoned here when Katherine became visibly pregnant with their son Edward. During their time here, some rather lax Yeomen Warders allowed the couple opportunities to have a second son, Thomas. After that, the marriage was annulled, and the two boys declared illegitimate. At Elizabeth's orders, Katherine was separated from her husband under a succession of house arrests, ending in her death at the age of twenty-seven from consumption. Edward married twice more, but had no more children, and his two sons were effectively rendered legitimate.

"After the trouble that Lady Katherine's elder sister, the Lady Jane, had caused Elizabeth's elder half-sister Mary I…"

"That was my parents and my parents-in-law's fault, Edward, as ye well know!" a ghost still in her mid-to-late teens announced primly. "I never wanted the throne, but the Duke of Northumberland told your dear nephew that he couldn't bypass his elder Catholic half-sister Mary's claim to the throne in favour of his younger half-sister Elizabeth. He could, however, use the annulments of both Henry VIII's first two marriages to make both half-sisters illegitimate and declare me the heir to the throne. The fact that he was marrying me to his youngest son, Lord Guildford Dudley, may have influenced the Duke's opinion.

"Whilst John Dudley had his good points, he was a proud and ambitious man…"

"We all were, Jane my dear. _Hubris_ always invites _Nemesis_, however unjustly.

"It was John Dudley's faction behind my downfall, Jane. He was a capable administrator, but a poor ruler. To tell the truth, I was the same."

"In any event, Queen Mary was more popular with the public and we were defeated and sent to the Tower. The Duke was beheaded on Tower Hill and Guildford and I were sentenced to death. Cousin Mary initially was inclined to show us mercy. My father, the Duke of Sussex, then threw in his lot with Thomas Wyatt the Younger's rebellion. My husband and I were now considered too dangerous to be allowed to live. On 12 February 1554, nearly nine months after my nine-day reign as Queen of England had ended, we were executed, Guildford on Tower Hill and me here on Tower Green. He was not yet twenty and I was a couple of years younger still. Whilst more friends than lovers in life, we are happy together in death. I have never been more content.

"My two younger sisters Katherine and Mary Grey were treated with respect by Queen Mary and then by Queen Elizabeth. Both incurred the latter's wrath by marrying without her consent. Whilst Mary was eventually restored to favour, Katherine was the only one of us to have issue."

"How do you all know things that happened after your deaths?" Luna asked. "It must be the _Nargles…_"

"Most of the great and the not-so good ended up here at some point or another," Edward told her. "After that, it has continued to be a military base. Anything of importance tends to quickly reach us ghosts.

"Remember, my dear Mistress Scamander, that Archbishop Laud and the Earl of Strafford died more than two decades after Arbella, though centuries before you were born. It gives us spectres of the Tower a certain perspective on Time.

"My son died in 1621, and his grandson William succeeded him as the Earl of Hertford. That was after Arbella's death in 1615. He had since remarried and later had children.

"Originally an opponent of King Charles I, he later switched sides and fought for the Royalists during the Civil War. By that time created the Marquess of Hertford, he was the King's most prominent supporter during his imprisonment and at his execution. William died in late 1660, a few months after the newly restored King Charles II had recreated my Dukedom of Somerset for him. In fact, he was styled as the Second Duke of the Fourth Creation, with me now posthumously restored as the First. The title is currently held by John Seymour, the Nineteenth Duke and my direct descendant.

"Thanks to those kindly Victorians, my grave bears my title of Duke of Somerset. Anne's identifies her as Queen Anne Boleyn. Not one of us is described as a felon, yet alone a traitor. Small consolation, perhaps, for our deaths, but greatly appreciated none the less.

"Oh, and Luna, a UNIT soldier showed me what he called a _'print-out'_ listing the succession of the Dukes of Somerset.

"Could somebody please go and comfort poor Arbella? The poor soul is known for her mournful cries. Tis a great tale, no doubt, and my great-grandson was a coward and a cad to use and desert her so. It still grieves my heart full sore to hear her weep and wail so."

"I'll go," Jane offered. "Arbella's great-grandmother was Henry VIII's elder sister Margaret, widow of King James IV of Scotland and mother of his son James V. After James IV was killed fighting the English at Flodden, Margaret married Archibald Douglas, the Earl of Angus. Their daughter Margaret Lennox nee Douglas had two surviving sons by her husband Matthew Stewart, the Earl of Lennox. Their eldest son, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, married his first cousin, Mary Queen of Scots and fathered James VI and I, whilst the younger son Charles Stuart was Arbella's father.

"As such, we are kinswomen. She may have been born some twenty years after my death and by malnutrition and not the axe, but we still suffered and died here for being a rival to the throne."

"Arbella was only a potential claimant, my darling," said a clean-shaven ghost in his late teens. This was Guildford Dudley. "Like your sisters, she never seemed interested in becoming Queen. It was the fear that somebody else might, particularly if she had children with a man with a claim to the throne in his own right."

"True," Jane smiled. She slipped her arm around his waist. "Once I have seen to Arbella, my love, how about spending a couple of hours by ourselves celebrating the occasion?"

"_Petrified Paintpots! _St Valentine's Day is a rather _Papist_ celebration for a _pair of Puritans to observe!_" Jigger was joking, by the way. Seriously, though, he had a point.

"We were beheaded when we had scarce thirty-seven years between us, my good Master Johnson," Jane sighed. "So much time was wasted on a perishable crown and petty squabbles over matters that mattered little to our Lord anyway. In death, I discovered that the husband I had been forced to marry was all that I had ever wanted, not a few ounces of gold and jewels placed on my head.

"Catholic, Protestant, God loves us all. Tonight, I want to share my love with my Valentine.

"Fare ye well, all of ye. See you soon, my beloved." With that, the Nine-Day Queen went off to attend to her kinswoman, after giving her sweetheart a tender kiss.

"_Jinkies!_ Did anyone leave this place with their head still on their neck?"

"The ghosts here never got their _Happily Ever After,_ that's for sure!" Zelena said, agreeing with Velma.

"I don't know, _mis amigos_," Linda mused. "Those two found their True Loves, by the look of it. Isn't that the ultimate Fairy Tale _Happily Ever After, _Zelena?"

"Auntie Linda's right, Auntie Zelena," Harriet piped up. "_True Love Conquers All!_"

"You have been spending too much time with my nephew, _my little flying monkey!_" Zelena smiled at Harriet, showing that she thoroughly agreed with the sentiment. She is a Fairy Tale at the end of the day. We in the Former Younger Adventurer camp use the phrase _'From Loyalty to Love!'_ If you stay true to each other through thick and thin, love romantic or filial tends to develop naturally.

"I am happy for them, truly, but…" Anne sighed. "Not all of us won in love. _My Beloved_ had my head cut off!"

"Arbella was abandoned by my caddish, cowardly great-grandson," Edward agreed. "I caught my own first wife in bed with my father. No wonder I had the marriage annulled shortly thereafter.

"The Tower of London was an insatiable vampire for misery, hopelessness and cruelty, Anne. _Happy Endings_ are not generally associated with prisons and scaffolds at the end of the day."

Edward was of course right. _Abandon hope all ye that enter here!_ Well, that was the case in his day. Today, you can pay £24.70 for a fun day out, with guided tours by Yeoman Warders, seeing the Crown Jewels and the ravens, historical re-enactments and even Twilight Tours for hardy souls. The ghosts have competitions as to who can scare the most nocturnal visitors. Anne, Jane, Edward and the other senior ghosts make a point of keeping Max the bear out of the way, not wanting a repeat of the fate of that unfortunate sentry in 1816.

"Ned's right, dear sister," George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford agreed. He was beheaded on Tower Hill two days before his sister's execution, falsely accused of being her lover. _Honestly, I ask you…?_ Henry VIII and his Chief Minister Thomas Cromwell excelled themselves with that creative gem!

"As Guildford and Jane show, sweetheart, post-mortem Happy Endings are possible," Jane Boleyn, Viscountess Rochford, reminded him. She was decapitated on Tower Green in 1542, nearly six years after her husband and sister-in-law were put to death, alongside Katherine Howard, Henry VIII's fifth wife and Anne Boleyn's first cousin. Jane was executed despite being diagnosed as insane, after Henry had ordered the law to be changed to allow a mad person to be put to death. Her "crime" was to have acted as a go-between during Katherine's "affair" with Henry's groom Thomas Culpeper. Katherine never actually slept with her beau, but Henry felt aggrieved that a girl of not yet twenty would prefer a young man over an obese man of fifty with an ulcerous leg. _Honestly, odious oik_ doesn't quite do the man justice!

"Being accused of being mine and Anne's betrayer must hurt you, dearest. The only charge at those farcical trials that had anything to do with you was you remembering us mocking King Henry's virility. _Even that _was terrified out of you. It might not be being accused of _incest, _but you never had anything to do with those charges.

"A comment of Anne's about the Countess of Worcester making up allegations against us to get out of repaying money that Anne had lent her was falsely interpreted as against you. Never did we blame you for our deaths. After your beheading, Anne greeted you with a fond hug and I kissed you with all the passion that I could muster."

"At your arrest," Jane Boleyn noted, "all my clothes were listed as being gaily coloured. At _my_ arrest, I was only listed as having black clothes in my wardrobe. Given that I had been lady-in-waiting to all three of his queens during that period, I was taking my life into my hands reminding King Henry that I was a widow. If we were unhappily married as history says, I would _never_ have been that foolish.

"My fellow Jane was right. I have everything that I ever wanted in life right here!" The couple shared a long kiss, before pulling Anne in for a fond family hug.

"With that, I think that we need to be off home," Louise suggested, slipping her arm into mine. "After all, once Harriet is tucked up in bed, I want a romantic night with _my Valentine!_" She kissed me, before we pulled Harriet, Jean and Linda in close. "_Family hug!_"

"Well, see ye all soon," Anne called. "Fare ye all well. I hope to see ye all again ere long."


End file.
